Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust

After an eight-week trial, Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford rolled out its electronic patient flow system across the whole site in the third quarter of 2008.  ExtraMed Beds replaces the current paper-based system in order to improve patient flow and allow more efficient use of hospital capacity.

The software is being rolled out across all wards, covering some 800 beds and will also be rolled out to St John's Hospital, Chelmsford's main centre for maternity and gynaecology services.

Mike Casey, Director of IT at Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS trust, said: "We were impressed with ExtraMed's clinically-focussed approach early on and their clear understanding of the needs of nurses and managers working in a pressurised, acute hospital environment.

"We are committed to improving patient care and are pleased to be able to deliver an IT solution that will help busy clinicians to achieve this important objective."

Siobhan Jordan, Deputy Director of Nursing and lead member of the project, added: "Optimising patient flow is essential to deliver efficient, timely treatment for patients and make full use of hospital resources. We are working hard to improve our bed management processes and it became clear that relying on a paper system was hindering our progress.

"The ExtraMed system appealed as it is designed from a nurse's point of view and received very positive feedback. It takes on average 45 minutes to train a staff member and because of this we are achieving high levels of nurse engagement.

"This system will allow us to manage beds in real time to the individual bed level, free up nursing time to focus on patient care and improve our discharge planning."